ᐅ Combination of Tiles and Hardwood Flooring

Created on: 20 Jul 2016 21:54

Hello dear forum members!

I have some questions about a flooring combination of tiles and solid wood parquet, and I hope you might be able to answer some of them. :-)

We are about to purchase a single-family house. On the ground floor, there is a large “L”-shaped room, with the kitchen on one side and the dining/living area on the other. Currently, large tiles (about 30x80cm (12x31 inches)) are installed throughout the entire room, but in the dining/living area they are laid in a different direction (rotated 90 degrees) and in a different color, but that’s not important of course ;-)

Since we find parquet more comfortable and homely, we would like to replace the tiles in the dining and living area with oak parquet. We understand that this is not a one-day job and obviously you have to:

Remove baseboards, cut the edge next to the tiles in the kitchen, and break out the tiles in the dining-living area
“Repair” the screed, i.e., level and correct it again, which will likely have to be done by a professional company, as I can’t imagine doing it myself
And finally lay or glue down the parquet

Both rooms have underfloor heating embedded in the screed, although I do not yet know if there is a separate heating circuit for the dining and living area; I rather suspect not. Now my questions :-)

Could there be any technical heating issues if different floor coverings are installed on one heating circuit, in our case tiles and new parquet?
Is there anything in particular that must be considered or observed when “repairing” the screed?
Should the oak parquet boards ideally be laid along the length (of the room) or the width? The dining-living area where the parquet will be installed measures about 5x10m (16x33 feet).
Should the possibility of installing the parquet as a floating floor also be considered?
Is there any reason against using aluminum profiles at the tile-to-parquet edge, where the profile forms a 90-degree angle, one side next to the tiles and the other side resting on the parquet, with a silicone joint between the profile and the parquet?

Thank you very much for your help, I’m looking forward to your answers! :-)

Best regards from Steyr, Austria
Patrick

pst9028 Jul 2016 16:46

#13

Thanks for your input! 🙂

So, the option that currently seems the best fit for me is:

Carefully remove the old tiles (and baseboards) using a rotary hammer and tile chisel.
Remove the remaining tile adhesive with a diamond grinder.
Grind down the screed so that the new parquet flooring and adhesive will end up at the same height as the tiles that will remain, avoiding any step. Since @KlaRa mentioned that the underfloor heating pipes must be at least 40mm (1.6 inches) below the screed surface, grinding down the screed shouldn’t be an issue.
Glue the parquet using an appropriate adhesive.
Done 🙂

What do you think? 🙂

Thanks & best regards, Patrick

RobsonMKK28 Jul 2016 17:05

#14

pst90 schrieb:
...Grind the screed so that the new parquet flooring and adhesive will end up at the same height as the tiles that will remain, avoiding any step. Since @KlaRa mentioned that the underfloor heating pipes need to be at least 40mm (1.6 inches) below the screed surface, grinding the screed should not be a problem....
What do you think? 🙂

As I mentioned before, a skilled parquet installer will be able to gradually level this out across the area.
This will create a slight slope, but that is usually acceptable.

In my opinion, I would definitely not grind away the screed. Your diamond grinder would probably not handle that either, as it is designed for softer materials like adhesive or plaster.

KlaRa29 Jul 2016 08:54

#15

@pst90:
A common issue in public forums is that absolutely everyone, whether qualified or not, can express and post their opinion. This often leads to confusion and uncertainty due to conflicting views. I suggest that you primarily consider statements from contributors who stand out because they are professionally experienced in this field, even regarding the specific topic discussed here. Assumptions and "home remedies" are rarely helpful.

In this context, I would also like to point out that I hardly believe you yourself have access to a diamond blade grinding technique. Such methods are frequently used by specialist companies. However, this method will definitely not remove adhesives or elastic-plastic construction additives. If the surface of mineral screeds or ceramic tiles needs to be ground down by a few millimeters (inches), then it is suitable.

So, if someone lacks knowledge of the subject, they should not share advice publicly and thereby confuse the questioner(s). It is true that when grinding a screed in residential construction, you must know exactly what you are doing. This is not in accordance with standard technical guidelines, that is correct, but we are talking here about "renovation construction." This is a different league altogether.

The regulations all refer to the ideal state. However, in renovation projects, you rarely encounter this ideal state. Therefore, height differences between screeds in adjacent rooms are not a "standard-compliant condition." But this is what we face, and we can either accept the step or height difference in the walking surface or eliminate it.

This cannot be resolved by simply ignoring it. Therefore, we have to either mechanically remove material on one side or add to the other. Due to existing transition points, this is not always possible. So, the remaining option is removing material by grinding with a diamond blade.

The assurance that the load-bearing capacity is still reliable comes from the nominal thickness (during screed installation), which includes safety tolerances as additional thickness.

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Regards: KlaRa

ᐅ Combination of Tiles and Hardwood Flooring

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